


Tabula Rasa

by moodiful819



Series: Tabula Rasa [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Married Couple, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8139502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodiful819/pseuds/moodiful819
Summary: She had called him a blank slate





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post: http://serenitytouched.tumblr.com/post/123592042750/reshki-earthprxnce-otpdisaster-person-b-making

She had called him a blank slate.

Sakura could still remember Ino’s voice when she gave her report. Having heard the news, the mind-jutsu specialist had rushed out of her bed. She would perform the diagnostic test herself, she declared angrily, even when no one protested. No one would correct the blonde though. They knew what was at stake.

The exam was done at 2:06 AM in an empty room. Three medics held point on the diagram inked into the floor while another monitored Ino’s slumped figure dressed in one of her best silk nightgowns. The entire process took six hours, and when Ino finally crawled out from the room, leaning heavily on the door frame, she gave the final verdict: “Tabula Rasa.”

“Functionally, he’s fine. There’s the three broken ribs from the fall during the mission and all the bruising, but mentally he’s all there…” she explained before trailing off, which was odd because Sakura never knew her best friend to be hesitant or shifty around her. The last time it was like this, they had both been 10 and both in love with Sasuke, but that was a long time ago.

“But what?” Sakura prompted.

“Mentally, he’s all there but…. you’re not, Forehead. _You’re not in any of his memories at all.”_

Ino tried to elaborate. The words were meaningless, but it was a good way to fill the silence. Her friend knew the pink-haired medic needed something to distract her from the punch that had just been dealt to her gut, no matter how futile the attempt, and launched into the fray tongue-first, others eventually following.

Over the next two weeks, Sakura would be subjected to every ounce of trivia and trite metaphor under the sun. During that time, she learned that “tabula rasa” was a Latin phrase, that there was more than one region of the brain responsible for the processing of memory, and that Kakashi’s illness was much like a computer with a virus affecting all areas linked to a central vein of code. All of this was useless to her though. Sakura had already learned the parts of the brain during her medical training years ago, and she was hopeless with technology. And what was more, Kakashi wasn’t a computer…

He was her husband.

The door opened with a bang, an accident on her part. She hadn’t meant for her entrance to be dramatic, despite how traumatizing this was for her. 

After all, it wasn’t everyday that your husband forgot who you were entirely.

But the man in the bed seemed to take everything in stride, and it pained her to think that Kakashi was much more pleasant to her now as a stranger than he had ever been as her genin teacher.

Putting his book down, he gave her a lackadaisical wave. “Good morning, Haruno-sensei,” he smiled, and it was a knife in her throat to hear him repeat what he had greeted her with so often on the tender mornings before their marriage.

Swallowing the lump wedged in her throat, she walked over to the bed as casually as she could, thankful that her legs did not shake and thankful that she had not broken down sobbing like she did the first night she visited him.

“Hello Hatake-san,” she returned politely, something that galled her to say. She had never called him something that respectful in their lives, and she hated that she had to treat her husband so civilly. “Did the nurse explain what is happening today?”

“You’re taking over my case,” he answered. “Though really, I feel fine. And if you wouldn’t mind discharging me, I–”

“I wouldn’t call three broken ribs ‘fine,’” she sharply quipped, already tucking his legs back into the bed. “Also, if you try to leave through the window, _I will find you._ I know all your hiding places, even that place in the Nidaime’s nostril in the Hokage monument.”

At that, the silver-haired man balked, mouth falling slightly agape. “How did you know–”

“That you hide there? Because you told me,” she answered simply, settling on the edge of his bed by his hand. She took it in hers, the first time she’d felt his touch in weeks since he went on that asinine mission. Her blood boiled under her skin, still livid that Naruto had ever allowed Kakashi on the mission that robbed him of her memories. She still didn’t know all the details–after her little “outburst,” she had been banned from the Tower until further notice, and the Anbu patrolling the area were enough to dissuade her from sneaking in after hours–but from what she could gather from the poor intern she interrogated, it had involved a blood ritual, a death god, and an attempt on her life. Sakura still wasn’t sure how he managed to escape an altercation like that, but it didn’t surprise her in the least that Kakashi would fight a god for her. In their wedding vows, he promised to fight heaven and earth for her and he’d always been a man of his word.

It brought a smile on her face as she recalled the memory, one of the many they shared and that now only she seemed to keep. She wanted to bring him home and show him their life together, the stacks and stacks of photo albums they’d made and that she had scrounged out of the donated photos from their friends. The piles went up to her chest and covered the living room floor, piles of their lives in frozen instances that she had gone over and over again. Piles that had made the last two weeks bearable…

But Ino warned her about how volatile memory was. She had to start slow.

Turning his hand once again in her hand, she lingered on a spot on one of his fingers before reaching into her lab coat pocket.

“Do you know why I’ve been assigned your case?” she asked conversationally.

He paused, glancing into the corner, and rubbed his masked chin as he thought. The sight of him masked once more was an image awash with nostalgia. Apparently, his usual mask had been his first request once he’d woken up. It did not surprise her; even she had to wait a few months into their relationship before he would show her his face, and she did not take it personally that he chose to hide himself again in her presence. Old habits died hard, and if anything, she welcomed the chance to bring his walls down once more. 

“You’re a specialist?” he ventured. A good estimate given the circumstances, but she shook her head.

“No,” she replied softly. “We’re married.”

He didn’t say anything, but then again, Sakura hadn’t really expected him to. Quietly, she brought out a small box from her pocket. Placing it in her lap, she lifted the lid, pushing aside layers of silk before retrieving a small item. She held it up for him to see.

“It’s your wedding ring,” she said handing it to him. He stared hard at the small gold band in his palm, plain other than the engraving of a cherry blossom on the inside of the metal before his gaze edged to his left hand. She knew what he was looking at, the lack of a tanline.

“You don’t wear it often,” she explained. “You always thought jewelry could attract unnecessary attention during a mission. Plus, you were always afraid of losing it in the mud,” she laughed, but it was short-lived. When he remained silent, she settled for worrying the edge of her lab coat.

“That was one of the only things I had when you went on that mission. Naruto won’t tell me what went on that day—he says the records are all sealed for my protection. You were supposed to only be gone for three days, but you were gone for three weeks. You never gave any status reports back, and when they went to look for you, you were alone and unconscious in the middle of a pile of rubble. It’s a miracle that you weren’t more hurt. That you weren’t…that you weren’t de—“

A sob choked her off then. Not something quiet and dignified like those women did in the movies. This was an awful ugly sob, the kind that made it sound like she was trying to suck her lungs back in through her nose and left your face swollen, blotchy, and red. She couldn’t believe she was doing this—now when she had been doing so well.

“S-sorry,” she hiccupped, laughing at the sheer absurdity of the moment. However, Kakashi was polite about it and gently placed a comforting hand on her head.

“Take your time,” he told her calmly. He was using his teacher-voice with her, patronizing her. She wanted to laugh at him. No teacher would’ve ever fucked her so raw and thoroughly into his bed as he had.

Hastily, she wiped away her tears with her coat sleeves and gratefully accepted the tissue he handed her from the bedside table, not missing the way he tensed when she blew her nose. She balled it up, discarding it in her lap.

For a while, they just sat there, neither looking the other in the eye.

“Do you really have no memory of me?” She tried to keep the sadness out of her voice, tried to build levees against the guilt she knew lurked in her voice, but she had already failed at one goal today. The second was just inevitable.

Kakashi maintained his gaze with the radiator in the corner.

“Am I really just gone from you?” Their marriage, she could forgive—it had only been two years. Their years dating each other, she could also forgive—but her entire existence? The years she spent as part of Team 7? The day he taught them all how to control their chakra? The bell tests? The years of pain and effort she spent trying to prove to him that she deserved his recognition as well as the other boys? She’d known this man for eleven years. He had been part of half of her life. They’d saved each other time and time again and loved each other just as often. This couldn’t be real.

“I don’t remember you at all,” he confessed, and this time, he had the decency to look at her.

She wished he hadn’t.

Grieved, she stared into her lap. Shreds of tissue littered her thighs and the standard-issue light-blue hospital blanket. She felt like a child again, her world contracting tightly around her and once again, she was small, frightened, and very much alone.

So be it, she told herself. Afraid or not, she had a job to do.

“I’ll make you remember me then,” she said with a determined gleam in her eye. She was no longer the lost little girl of her youth. She’d grown stronger, tougher, wiser. Life had thrown war, betrayal, and loss at her time and time again, and she’d overcome every time. This occasion would be no different. She would succeed in reviving his memories of her, and if not…

“And if not, I’ll make you fall in love with me all over again,” she declared, and her mind spun with the possibilities as she debated aloud her options. Where should she start? Should she start from when she was a genin or talk about the war? Or should she start from when they first started dating and how he asked her out in the middle of sewing his organs back in, half-delirious from blood loss? Or maybe—

A hand covered hers, gentle and quiet as a dove settling down for the night.

“Sakura…” he said, and she felt her joy rise to the rafters. It’d been the first time she’d said her name since this all began.

“Yes?” she said eagerly.

“Maybe… maybe you shouldn’t bring my memories back.”

Of all the things she thought he would say to her, Sakura could not have ever imagined this would be one of them. She didn’t—it hadn’t crossed her mind too—but here it was, echoing in her head in a tone so hesitant, so remorseful, so achingly tender that she almost wanted to hear him say it again.

As she processed the message, she was distantly aware of the wedding ring being pressed back into the safekeeping of her hands. “Wha…? I don’t—”

“Haruno-san, I believe you when you say we were married. I really do, but the fact of the matter is, things aren’t quite adding up for me.  What you’ve given me is a lovely story of our past, but that is all it is: a story. As a shinobi, I cannot help but suspect that this might just be a deeply-elaborate ruse. Single individuals do not just disappear from people’s memories, and if I was in love with you as you say, I don’t understand why I would have ever removed my wedding band—safety or not.

“Barring that, even if what you said was entirely true… The fact that you are the only person I have no memories of despite our marriage might suggest this amnesia was voluntary. While I don’t think you’re a bad person, I have to trust my character and my judgments. I don’t remember what made me forget you, but perhaps our life together was something I chose to forget.”

Gaze lowered, he watched as he carefully folded the long digits of the medic’s hand over the ring, smothering its light and covering it from view before pulling away.

“I am so sorry for hurting you, Haruno-san, and I am sorry that you will have to carry the burden of these memories alone. I hope you can forget them soon.”

And she tried to keep it together—she really did—but his last words were what did her in.

Shoulders shaking, back tense, her hands were clenched so tightly that blood began to speckle the sheets. Tears stung her eyes, but she couldn’t figure out whether it was from fury or anguish. Did it even matter, she wondered. They were over. They were over before they had even begun, and she didn’t even bother stifling her cries for his comfort. His comfort be damned! He deserved to stew in his guilt.

But she knew she couldn’t stay there. If not for saving her petty pride from further humiliation, then for the fact that he would not comfort her then as she needed him to. He would never do it again. She had no place in his life anymore.

Getting up from the bed, the bits of tissue fell like snow on the tile. She would leave, but not before saying something to him first.

“My name is Hatake, not Haruno!” she bellowed through her tears, and for a second she was impressed by the volume she’d managed to accomplish despite the heated stickiness of her face. For another second, she had half a mind to throw his ring back at his stupid face. If he didn’t want it, she didn’t want it either! And she reached her arm back to lob the metal object hard enough to break his stupid fucking nose.

But just as quickly as the anger came, so too did the indecision. Suddenly she hesitated. If she threw this ring at him, she would hurt him—yes. But for how long? He would probably just throw it away once she left. But for her, she would be throwing away another shred of their old life together and she knew somewhere in her body that she would regret it.

And while she didn’t want to—while she wanted desperately to stop herself and hide—she faltered. Her eyes trailed to her shaking hand, and the fact that he saw her do this killed her.

But it was no longer about him. The grief had thankfully blinded her, wrapped her tight in its numbing embrace, and offered her the shelter she so desperately craved. Clutching the ring against her chest, she jumped out the window. As she fell, there was the delayed sound of an IV stand clattering against the plastic bedframe, but she did not look back. She did not dare to, instead keeping chin firm and her gaze forward, unblinking even towards the searing sun.

And then, once home and away from the sun, she tipped forward and grieved her heart anew, spilling albums in her wake. Water pouring from her eyes like upturned urns, she cried under the blanket of their frozen memories, as barren and stale as ancient ruins.


End file.
